The Holly Tree

by Charles Dickens

It
really was as much as he could do, he don't mind confessing to me, to
look them two young things in the face, and think what a wicked old
father of lies he had grown up to be. Howsomever, he went on a lying
like a Trojan about the pony. He told 'em that it did so unfortunately
happen that the pony was half clipped, you see, and that he couldn't be
taken out in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside. But
that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that
to-morrow morning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots's
view of the whole case, looking back on it in my room, is, that Mrs.
Harry Walmers, Junior, was beginning to give in. She hadn't had her hair
curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it
herself, and its getting in her eyes put her out. But nothing put out
Master Harry. He sat behind his breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the
jelly, as if he had been his own father.

After breakfast, Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed
soldiers,--at least, he knows that many such was found in the fire-place,
all on horseback. In the course of the morning, Master Harry rang the
bell,--it was surprising how that there boy did carry on,--and said, in a
sprightly way, "Cobbs, is there any good walks in this neighbourhood?"

"Yes, sir," says Cobbs. "There's Love Lane."

"Get out with you, Cobbs!"--that was that there boy's expression,--"you're
joking."

"Begging your pardon, sir," says Cobbs, "there really is Love Lane. And
a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it to yourself and
Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior."

"Norah, dear," said Master Harry, "this is curious. We really ought to
see Love Lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest darling, and we will go
there with Cobbs."

Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, when that
young pair told him, as they all three jogged along together, that they
had made up their minds to give him two thousand guineas a year as head-
gardener, on accounts of his being so true a friend to 'em. Boots could
have wished at the moment that the earth would have opened and swallowed
him up, he felt so mean, with their beaming eyes a looking at him, and
believing him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he
could, and he took 'em down Love Lane to the water-meadows, and there
Master Harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, a getting
out a water-lily for her,--but nothing daunted that boy. Well, sir, they
was tired out. All being so new and strange to 'em, they was tired as
tired could be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies, like the
children in the wood, leastways meadows, and fell asleep.

Boots don't know--perhaps I do,--but never mind, it don't signify either
way--why it made a man fit to make a fool of himself to see them two
pretty babies a lying there in the clear still sunny day, not dreaming
half so hard when they was asleep as they done when they was awake. But,
Lord! when you come to think of yourself, you know, and what a game you
have been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor
sort of a chap you are, and how it's always either Yesterday with you, or
else To-morrow, and never To-day, that's where it is!

Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty
clear to Boots, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses, Junior's, temper was
on the move.